Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, please note that many of the comments made today are considered to be forward-looking statements under federal securities law. As described in our filings with the SEC, these statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause future results to differ from those expressed, and we are not obligated to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements. In addition, on today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial information such as FFO, adjusted EBITDA RE, and comparable hotel level results. You can find this information together with reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP information in yesterday's earnings press release and our 8K filed with the SEC and the supplemental financial information on our website, at hosthotels.com. With me on today's call are Jim Rizzolio, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Saurav Ghosh, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Jim.

Thank you, Jamie, and thanks to everyone for joining us this morning. Before we turn to the quarter, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the devastating wildfires that occurred on the island of Maui this past August. All of us at Host were deeply saddened by the loss of life and heartbreaking impact on local communities. As the largest hotel real estate owner on Maui for over 20 years, Host has long shared a connection to the island and helping to support the community through this difficult time is important to our company. We are proud to have aided recovery and rebuilding efforts, donating more than $250,000 to emergency response and relief organizations, as well as providing direct financial assistance and relief to our hotel's employees. We also provided food and shelter to these employees, their families, and emergency response teams. The strength and resilience of the Maui community inspires us. and we are committed to supporting them as the recovery continues. Now, let's move to our results for the quarter. Please note that the results presented on today's call represent the comparable hotel portfolio, which includes all three Maui resorts and continues to exclude the Ritz-Carlton Naples and Hyatt Regency Coconut Point. When applicable, we will provide estimated impacts from Maui to certain results to provide a more comprehensive view of business trends in the quarter. During the third quarter, we delivered a comparable hotel rep par improvement of 1.8% compared to the third quarter of 2022. Our rep par performance for the quarter was driven by an occupancy increase of 150 basis points led by our convention hotels in downtown locations. Overall, Maui had less of an impact on our results than we initially expected, as we were able to replace high-rated transient business with recovery and relief group business, which impacted our demand mix this quarter. We delivered adjusted EBITDA RE of $361 million, which includes $54 million of business interruption proceeds from Hurricane Ian and delivered adjusted FFO per share of 41 cents, feeding consensus on both metrics. Third quarter comparable hotel EBITDA margin of 26.6% exceeded 2019 by 10 basis points, and this marks the sixth consecutive quarter since the onset of the pandemic that we have achieved TREBPAR, REPPAR, comparable hotel EBITDA, and margins ahead of 2019 levels. Comparable hotel red par for October is expected to be approximately $229, a 2.4% improvement over 2022. We estimate that the Maui wildfires impacted third quarter comparable hotel red par by 60 basis points, comparable hotel tread par by 120 basis points, and comparable hotel EBITDA by $4.5 million. Our risk management team is continuing to engage with our insurers about potential business interruption coverage, and the timing and amounts of any potential proceeds are not yet known. Despite the wildfires on Maui, which we expect will impact our full-year Red Park guidance by 50 basis points, we maintain the midpoint of our previous full-year expected comparable hotel Red Park growth at 8%, and tightened our full-year Red Park growth guidance range to 7.25% to 8.75%. At the midpoint of our guidance, full-year 2023 comparable hotel EBITDA is forecasted to be 8.5% above 2019, with comparable hotel Red Park growth 5.6% greater than 2019. As we look at the current macro picture, we continue to be optimistic about the state of travel for several reasons. First, group business continues to improve. During the quarter, we booked 245,000 group rooms for 2023, and total group revenue pace is now 6.7% ahead of the same time 2019, up from 4.2% as of the second quarter. Even without the recovery and relief groups on Maui, total group revenue would have been above both 2022 and 2019. The group booking window continues to extend, and we are pleased with the base we have on the books for next year. Second, business transient demand continued its gradual improvement during the third quarter. Business transient revenue was up approximately 9% to 2022, and demand improved 5% compared to the third quarter of 2022. Overall, business transient revenue is down approximately 16% compared to 2019, with room nights down approximately 20%. Room nights have gradually improved throughout the year. In January, we were down nearly 23% to 2019, and in September, we were down just 17% to 2019. We see the continued evolution of business travel as a tailwind in the future. Third, leisure rates at our resorts remain well above 2019 levels despite continued moderation in the third quarter as expected. For context, transient rates at our resorts were 56% above 2019 in the third quarter. which is particularly impressive when considering that this excludes the benefits from our two newly renovated non-comparable hotels in Florida and includes the impact from our three resorts on Maui. Fourth, we expect international demand to be a positive trend going forward. International inbound air traffic increased to 88% of 2019 levels in September, up from 80% in June. At the same time, international outbound air traffic increased to 118% of 2019 levels after hovering near 108% since January, which indicates that consumers continue to prioritize travel. As evidenced by recent booking volume trends for U.S. airlines, the international imbalance is likely to revert to 2019 levels over time. Most importantly, we are not seeing evidence of a weakened consumer at our hotels. Food and beverage outlet revenues remain both above 2022 and 2019, driven by resorts and non-resorts alike, which is encouraging given that occupancy still lags 2019 levels. Golf and spa revenues also remain significantly ahead of pre-pandemic levels. Taken together, we believe this indicates the consumer's continued desire and ability to spend on experiences at our hotels. Moving to our reconstruction efforts following Hurricane Ian, the newly transformed Ritz-Carlton Naples has been very well received since its reopening in July, and we are optimistic that the resort is set up to exceed our underwriting expectations. Transient rates were 75% above 2019 for the second half of this year, driven by the increased suite mix and the new Vanderbilt Tower. Looking forward to festive season, club level room night booking pace is up more than 20% over the same time in 2019 with an ADR premium of almost $900 and suite bookings are pacing up 125% with a more than $1,300 rate increase over 2019. We are proud of the well-deserved attention that Ritz-Carlton Naples is receiving, including regaining the coveted AAA Five Diamond designation, and we look forward to seeing the results it delivers in the years to come. In terms of insurance proceeds related to Hurricane Ian, to date, we have received $208 million of the expected potential insurance recovery of approximately $310 million for covered costs. During the third quarter, we received $54 million of business interruption proceeds, and we expect to receive an additional $26 million of business interruption proceeds in the fourth quarter. Turning to group, revenue exceeded 2022 by 10% in the third quarter, marking the fifth consecutive quarter group revenue exceeded 2019. Definite group room nights on the books for 2023 increased to 4 million in the third quarter, which represents approximately 110% of comparable full-year 2022 actual group room nights, up from 103% as of the second quarter. For full-year 2023, total group revenue pace is up approximately 20% to the same time last year, and up 6.7% to the same time 2019, in part due to recovery and relief groups on Maui. Group rate on the books is up 7% to the same time last year, a 40 basis point increase since the second quarter. Looking ahead to 2024, we have 2.6 million definite group room nights on the books, a 15% increase since the second quarter. Total group revenue pace is up 13% to the same time last year, driven fairly evenly by room nights and rate. We are encouraged by the ongoing strength of group as evidenced by increasing pace, lengthening booking windows, and improving citywide calendars. Moving to portfolio reinvestment, we are excited to announce that we reached an agreement with Hyatt to complete transformational reinvestment capital projects at six properties in our portfolio. The properties include the Grand Hyatt Atlanta, the Grand Hyatt Washington DC, the Grand Hyatt San Diego, the Hyatt Regency Austin, the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill, and the Hyatt Regency Reston. Building on the success of the Marriott Transformational Capital Program, we believe these portfolio investments will position the targeted hotels to compete better in their respective markets while enhancing long-term performance. Hyatt has agreed to provide us with priority returns on these investments. Additionally, Hyatt will provide $40 million in operating profit guarantees as protection for the anticipated disruption associated with the incremental investment. Our total investment is expected to be approximately $550 to $600 million, two-thirds of which we were planning to invest as part of our capital plan over the next few years. We expect to invest between $125 and $200 million per year over the next three to four years on this program. We are targeting stabilized annual cash-on-cash returns and the low double digits on our incremental investment through a combination of enhanced owner's priority returns and rep part index share gains. Turning to our capital expenditure guidance for 2023, we tightened the range to $615 to $695 million, which includes approximately $200 to $230 million of investment for redevelopment, repositioning, and ROI projects, and $150 to $175 million for hurricane restoration work. Major capital expenditure projects included the December completion of a transformational renovation at the Fairmont Key Line, as well as the start of construction at the Phoenician Canyon Suites Villas and a luxury condominium development at Four Seasons Resort Orlando at Walt Disney World Resort. Lastly, we are well underway with the repositioning renovation of the Hilton Singer Island. which is expected to be complete in the first quarter of 2024. And we are working with Hilton to soft brand the hotel as a curio collection resort. We are targeting a stabilized cash on cash return in the mid-teens on our repositioning investment. As we have said many times before, our exceptional balance sheet puts us in a position to execute on multiple fronts, which is what you saw us do during the third quarter. We continue to reinvest in our portfolio, and we believe our comprehensive renovations will enhance the even growth of our portfolio well into the future. We announced an exciting transformational capital program with Hyatt. We purchased approximately $100 million of stock and returned capital to shareholders through a 20% increase in our quarterly dividend. We continue to be optimistic about the state of travel. and we believe Host is very well positioned to outperform in the current economic environment. With that, I will turn the call over to Saurabh.

Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everyone. Building on Jim's comments, I will go into detail on our third quarter operations, our updated 2023 guidance, our balance sheet, and our dividend. Starting with business mix, we estimate that Maui impacted overall transient revenue by 450 basis points would skew the comparison this quarter, resulting in transient revenue down 330 basis points to the third quarter of 2022. We were encouraged that transient rates at resorts remained 56% higher than 2019, despite the impact from Maui and the renovation at the One Hotel South Beach, which contributed to the decline over last year. As expected, during the third quarter, we continued to see a normalization in transient rates at resource compared to 2022. Business transient revenue was approximately 9% above the third quarter of 2022. Business transient rooms sold remain approximately 20% below 2019 levels, but it's worth noting that New York, San Francisco, and Denver, three of our largest business transient markets, were within 10% of 2019 room nights in the third quarter. Looking at top business transient customers, large consulting and audit firms continue to drive the biggest share of business travel room nights, but they're also the largest contributor to room night decline compared to 2019. Encouragingly, during the third quarter, large technology companies showed room-night growth compared to 2019. Turning to group, group room revenues were 10% above the third quarter of 2022, driven by a rate increase of 8%. It is worth noting that these results were skewed higher by the recovery and relief groups at our Maui resorts, which positively impacted group room revenue. In the quarter for the quarter, group room night bookings were up 49% compared to last year and 85% compared to 2019, with growth driven by New York, Phoenix, and San Francisco, as our convention hotels continue to focus on building a strong in-house group base. Maui also contributed to the strong in the quarter for the quarter bookings, but results would still have been up meaningfully, excluding its contribution. We are encouraged by the continued recovery of international arrivals to San Francisco, which stood at 87% of 2019 levels in the third quarter, up from 76% in the fourth quarter, driven by increased airlift from Asia. With respect to group mix, corporate group room revenue was up 8% in the third quarter, driven by 7% rate growth. Association group revenue was down 11% in the third quarter compared to last year, led by a decline in room nights as the citywide recovery remains uneven. Social, military, educational, religious, and fraternal, or SMURF group revenue was up 39% in the third quarter, driven by recovery and relief room nights on Maui, which are designated in the SMURF category. Excluding Maui, room night growth in this category would still have been up over 7% led by our hotels in New York and Washington, D.C. Looking ahead, our 2024 total group revenue pace is 13% ahead of the same time last year, and we continue to be encouraged by the citywide booking pace in markets such as Seattle, New Orleans, and San Diego, all of which have citywide group boom nights meaningfully ahead of the same time last year. Shifting gears to margin performance, Our third quarter comparable hotel EBITDA margin came in at 26.6%, which is 10 basis points above the third quarter of 2019. Total comparable expenses grew 5.5% over 2019, while total comparable revenues were up 5.6%. As we have said many times before, we are encouraged that comparable hotel EBITDA margin remains above 2019 despite elevated expense inflation over the past four years and occupancy still eight points below 2019. As Jim mentioned, despite the impact of the wildfires in Maui, we maintained the midpoint of our previous full-year expected comparable hotel REFPA growth at 8% and tightened our full-year REFPA growth guidance range to 7.25% to 8.75%. Our guidance range continues to contemplate varying degrees of moderating growth in the fourth quarter. We would expect year-over-year comparable hotel ref park percentage changes in the fourth quarter to be down low single digits at the bottom end to up low single digits at the top end, with the range driven primarily by the evolving nature of demand of Maui. We expect fourth quarter operational results to roughly follow 2019 quarterly seasonal trends as provided on page 17 of our supplemental financial information, which at the midpoint of our guidance implies slightly positive fourth quarter REFPA growth. At the midpoint, we would expect full-year adjusted EBITDA RE of $1,620,000,000. Please note that our adjusted EBITDA RE guidance includes $54 million of business interruption proceeds, which we received in the third quarter, and an additional $26 million, which we expect to collect in the fourth quarter, all of which is related to Hurricane Ian. Excluding the impacts of business interruption, our revised full-year comparable hotel EBITDA midpoint only declined $8 million versus the second quarter, despite a full-year estimated impact of $25 million from now. It is important to remember that although business interruption proceeds are one time in nature, we expect the Witz Carlton Naples and Hyatt Regency Coconut Point to contribute a full year of EBITDA in 2024. As a reminder, comparable hotel EBITDA and comparable hotel EBITDA margin are not affected by operational results or business interruption proceeds related to these two resorts, as they are considered non-comparable at this time. Shifting to margins, as we have discussed over the past few quarters, year over year, we expect comparable hotel EBITDA margins to be down 210 basis points at the low end of our guidance to down 170 basis points at the high end due to stable staffing levels at our hotels, higher utility and insurance expenses, and lower attrition and cancellation fees. For these reasons, we do not believe 2022 represents a stabilized comparison for margins. Relative to 2019, which we believe is a more representative year for margin comparison, we expect margins this year to be up 20 basis points at the low end of our guidance to up 60 basis points at the high end. This margin expansion is, despite impacts from Maui, occupancy still meaningfully below 2019 levels, moderating attrition and cancellation revenues, and expense inflation. Turning to our balance sheet and liquidity position, the $163 million loan to the buyer of the Sheraton Boston was repaid in full during the third quarter. Our weighted average maturity is 4.5 years at a weighted average interest rate of 4.6%. We have a balanced maturity schedule with our next maturity of $400 million coming due in April 2024. We ended the third quarter at 2.1 times leverage, and we have $2.6 billion of total available liquidity, which includes $218 million of FF&E reserves and full availability of our $1.5 billion credit facility. In addition, we repurchased 6.3 million shares at an average price of $15.90 per share, bringing our total repurchases for the quarter to $100 million. Year-to-date, we have repurchased 9.5 million shares at an average price of $15.82, bringing our total repurchases for the year to $150 million. We have approximately $823 million of remaining capacity under our repurchase program, and we will continue to be opportunistic when executing share repurchases. We paid a quarterly cash dividend of 18 cents per share, an increase of 3 cents, or 20% over our second quarter dividend. Though we expect to maintain our quarterly dividend at a sustainable level, taking into consideration potential macroeconomic factors, all future dividends are subject to approval by the company's board of directors. We remain optimistic on the future of our business and travel overall. We believe our portfolio, our balance sheet, and our team are well positioned to continue outperforming. As we have shown, hosts can do it all, and we will continue to be strategic in the current macroeconomic environment. With that, we would be happy to take your questions. To ensure we have time to address as many questions as possible, please limit yourself to one question.

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting our question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. And for participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question is coming from Ari Klein with BMO. Your line is live.

Thanks, and good morning. Maybe just on the group bookings pace, it's up 13% for next year. Curious what you're seeing from the in the quarter, for the quarter bookings, and do you think that bookings pace for next year ultimately narrows as maybe booking windows extend? And then if you could just touch on which markets look strongest and weakest for next year from a group standpoint.

Sure, Ari. So we saw meaningful in the quarter for the quarter bookings for the third quarter. That trend seems to be pretty consistent. We actually picked up 85% more relative to 19 in Q3 in the quarter for the quarter. When we looked at the 245,000 group room nights that Jim spoke to that we picked up in Q3 for Q3 and Q4, about 46% of that was a pickup for Q3 and about 54% of that was about a pickup for Q4. Going into next year, as the booking window extends, we do expect that to moderate somewhat just because there wouldn't be any capacity left, frankly, at the hotels. So to put that into perspective, our in the quarter, for the quarter booking window extended by about 10 days, which effectively was, it was 80 days before and it's like 90 days now. And then all future arrivals, that extends by 15 days. So we're definitely seeing that, that extend for in the year for the year as well as for future years. So you will see that moderation into next year. As it relates to markets that we expect will do well, For next year, we're certainly seeing a trend for our portfolio where it's meaningful in San Diego, Orlando, and D.C. Overall, citywide pace for 2024 is strong in Seattle, Boston, New Orleans, and Miami as well. What's interesting is right now when you look at 2024, the citywide room-night pace is actually 90% of 2019 actuals, which is up from 83%, which we saw at the end of Q2.

Thanks. Appreciate the call.

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Michael Bellisario with Baird. Your line is live.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Just on the Hyatt Capital program, for those six hotels, maybe just on average, but when were they all last renovated? What's the current REVPAR penetration index? And then Do you expect to get the same three to five point lift that you had underwrote for the MARAT program? Thank you.

Yeah, Mike, we'll be happy to gather that information specifically and share it with you. But suffice it to say that we and Hyatt both believe that these properties were in need of a transformational comprehensive renovation. We were going to undertake work at all six of these hotels, about two-thirds of the work that we agreed to with Hyatt in return for the enhanced owner priorities and the $40 million guarantee to support disruption. So we see returns in the You know, the low teens, as we saw with the Marriott transformational capital program, and that will be driven by the enhanced owner priority as well as yield index gains. So I think that we have a very high degree of comfort given the performance of the assets in the Marriott program. Just to refresh your recollection, that was 16 properties. They're not all stabilized yet due to where we are, but due to certain properties and certain competitive sets like New York, in particular, having been closed for a longer time than our property. But the assets that we have seen have delivered truly outsized yield index gains. We had underwritten three to five points and we're meaningfully above that. We're excited to be able to partner with Hyatt as their largest owner, and really looking forward to getting on with this program, which we will complete over the next three to four years.

Thank you.

Our next question is coming from Bill Krull with Raymond James. Your line is live.

Thanks. Good morning, Jim. It's Rob. Point of clarification, Saurav, is it fair to say you still have about $40 million in potential BI recoveries that could occur next year, right? $250 million through the third quarter plus some in the fourth and then the gap to 310. Is that the right way to think about it?

Saurav Dutta Yeah. We still plan to get to the 310. We're working with our insurers right now. There will be an allocation between BI and property. The letter we have got from our insurers is that we will be – they are okay with the 80 million of BI. That's why we have 26 million of BI in our forecast. We are still working with the insurers to collect on the balance. Don't know what that number exactly is going to be. It won't be all of the remaining to get to the free 10, but certainly more than the 80 million. So we do expect some BI next year. That amount, we are still working with our insurers as to what that is going to be.

All right. Thanks. And then my question really is, I hear you on the comparison of the margins versus 2019 instead of 2022. In a few months, we're going to be talking about 24 versus 23. And I'm thinking, you know, the question I've been asking the number of the REITs is what sort of top line growth, and we'll make our own decision about what that is. How much do you need before you can get flat EBITDA margins next year? Is that a 4% number?

Bill, that's a question that's really difficult to answer given where we are with respect to the budgeting process. What I can share with you at this time is we would anticipate wage growth next year in the 4% to 5% range. Where insurance costs are going to come in, they're certainly baked. through next June, because that the renewal was that is year to year and it renews June one of every year, or July one of every year, I guess, through June 30. So, you know, question mark will be what happens at insurance renewal. And, you know, there are a lot of variables that can impact that. And, you know, as we get granular on each hotel budget, we will look for opportunities to continue to enhance improvements in productivity and utilize technology as we have been doing. So we will do everything possible to command and control expenses going forward. But I do think it's important that we kind of level set the stage as to what is our true base of EBITDA. going into next year. And I would like to just share a couple numbers with you. Because I don't want people to think that, you know, the $80 million of business interruption that we received this year is a one time event. It's really not a one time event, from the perspective that the Ritz Carlton Naples and the higher recency coconut point are going to be back online full time next year. So

Yeah, just to expand on that, Bill, I think the way to think about it, first, choose levels at the base. So before we even get into the growth of EBITDA for next year, when you think about the midpoint of our guidance at 1620 right now, that already has a $30 million negative impact from Maui, which was made up of $25 million from the hotels and then $5 million from the timeshare. So let's assume for a second that we still have about a similar impact into next year as Maui recovers. And then you think about that 80 million of BI that proceeds for this year, which Jim mentioned, that effectively majority of that we would have received as EBITDA from the Ritz-Carlton Naples and the Hyatt Coconut Point if it was not for Hurricane Ian. So that is EBITDA we would be receiving for next year. So in other words, if you think about it, the base before any growth is starting off at a billion six plus, if that makes sense. And then, of course, as Jim mentioned, in terms of expenses and everything else, we are working through and we have many initiatives that we are working on. So while there will be inflationary expense pressures, we fully anticipate to mitigate those pressures with productivity enhancements and various initiatives that we have going on at the hotels. And we will provide you with next year guidance as we typically do in February at the February call.

Great. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Duane Fenningworth with Evercore ISA. Your line is live.

Hey, thanks. Good morning. I thought that was a good question by Bill and response by you. So I'll just ask another Hawaii question. Maybe could you just play back the recovery, why things were a little bit better than you anticipated? in the third quarter, and then maybe just since the Delta on the fourth quarter guidance is really about Hawaii, it sounds like what would get you to the high end, what would get you to the low end in terms of what needs to happen?

Sure, Dwayne. Let me start by saying that were it not for Maui, I think our guidance range for the full year would have been tighter than it is. But we have a wide range at this point in time because of some of the uncertainties surrounding how Hawaii is, how Maui is going to recover. You know, the west side of Maui, Kanapali, just reopened to tourists on November 1st, yesterday. So, it's going to take some time to see the cadence of how people are going to come back to the west side. And I do believe it'll take some time as well for people to get comfortable rebooking their stays down in the Wiley area where our other two resorts are. We did see a lot of cancellations in the fourth quarter due to some pronouncements that were made by the governor. And we fully support the reconstruction and relief efforts because what happened on Maui is just a terrible, horrible disaster. And we... fully support the fact that you got to take care of the people first. And that's what's happened. So the reason that our performance in the third quarter was better than we initially anticipated is the result of recovery, first responders taking rooms at our property as well as providing housing that was subsidized by FEMA for displaced residents. You know, that really caused a material pickup, a pickup better than we anticipated. You did see a decline in TREB PAR in the quarter by an amount that was directly attributable to what happened on Maui. I think the out-of-room spend, the TREB PAR spend, was impacted by 120 basis points. So we're optimistic for the long-term future of Maui. It's a great place, and... Great place to be, and, you know, we will do what we can to support the recovery.

Thanks, Jim. Maybe just to put a finer point on it, the Delta in the fourth quarter, the range, is that a function of the duration of first responder and housing or the rate of just sort of organic leisure recovery?

Yeah, it's a little difficult to look at November and December. It really is the disaster recovery business and how that will taper off. as the west side of the island opens up, which actually opened up as of yesterday, November 1st. So it's, you know, we're trying to gauge, the properties are trying to gauge what that demand pickup looks like and how they will replace sort of the regular business with the demand recovery business. So that was driving the delta. What I will say is if it was not for that, the Maui impact, you know, we put out October numbers at 2.4%. Our fourth quarter numbers would have been slightly higher than the 2.4% if it wasn't for the Maui impact.

Yeah, in point of fact, just to kind of wrap this up, Dwayne, our anticipated, the anticipated impact on comparable hotel rev par and comparable hotel EBITDA from Maui is 50 basis points off the top line and $25 million for the full year at the bottom line. So, in essence, had Maui not occurred, we would have been talking about a guidance raise on this call because we were able to keep the midpoint at 8%. We would have been talking about an 8.5% guide for this year. Understood. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Jay Kornreich with Wentbush. Your line is live.

Hey, good morning. You know, you made some comments on the urban and business transit demand profile accelerating in September, getting back to a 17% gap to 2019. So I'm wondering if you can just provide some more color on how much you think that gap can narrow in 2024. And maybe within that, you know, some of your peers have been diminishing their exposure to San Francisco. Maybe if you could provide some color on how you see your assets in that market trending over the next year or two.

Sure. I'll take the San Francisco piece of it, Jay. And then, you know, Sir Rob can talk a bit about business transients. You know, San Francisco, we think for the long term is a great place to be, particularly given the assets that we own, which we believe are the best located in the market and in excellent physical condition. San Francisco Moscone Marriott has been, for quite some time now, building a solid base of in-house group business. It's in terrific condition. It was the first asset that we completed as part of the Marriott Transformational Capital Program, completed in 2019. And, you know, the results are paying off relative to the competitive set. It is outpacing, I think, everyone in the set today. The Grand Hyatt on Union Square, also in great physical condition and a great location. So, you know, we are seeing a return of business travel in San Francisco, in particular, in September. San Francisco is one of our top business travel markets. We're down just about 10% in total room nights relative to where we were in 2019. So it's slow and steady. And I think, you know, 2024 will be a challenge year for San Francisco from a citywide perspective. But as we get beyond 2024, we're optimistic about how the market is going to evolve.

Yeah, and I'll add on the San Francisco piece, which is encouraging, is our lead volume as a San Francisco merit marquee is actually up 5.5% to last year. And, you know, our group rights, our room rights there was up almost 8.5% year over year as well. And in November is, I believe, when APEC, that Asia-Pacific Economic Conference is, and that should be really good for San Fran as well. Obviously, 24, as Jim mentioned, the citywide... are weak, but that's why we are really making a concerted effort to get quality in-house group at that hotel. As it relates to your question on BP, it's been a very, very slow recovery from a room-night perspective. Obviously, we had the strength of the special corporate rate this year, almost double digits, but the room-night recovery across the board for the portfolio is still down around 20%, call it. The major markets, as we spoke about in our prepared remarks, San Francisco, New York, Denver is down only 10% to 19%, which is pretty impressive. In terms of 2024, we expect more of the same in terms of BT. We expect certain markets to recover, to continue to recover, but just at a very slow pace. The reality is, is BT will come back in a meaningful way when there is more macroeconomic certainty and and there is true economic growth. We believe there's a pretty close relation with non-residential fixed investment growth and REVPAR, and once that comes back in a meaningful way and GDP growth comes back in a meaningful way, we expect that gap to reduce.

All right. All really helpful. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Smeeds Rose with Citi. Your line is lined.

Hi, thanks. I just wanted to ask you, you mentioned 2.6 million group room nights on the books for next year. How does that compare to where you would sort of normally be in terms of groups looking for the calendar year when you're in, you know, the year?

Yeah, when we compare that to 2019, we are about 10% down relative to 2019.

Okay, so catching up. And then can you just mention the Sheraton Boston, you mentioned the seller finances that loan was repaid in full. Any update on the Sheraton Times Square loan?

Yeah, that loan was due to be paid off on October 18th. We worked with the borrower and entered into a forbearance agreement and extension to November the 9th, next, November the 8th, next Wednesday. As part of that agreement, the interest rate was restated to 13%, and there was an upfront that brought the effective rate all in to 15%. So, they are in the final stages of completing the documentation necessary to have the loan paid off by next Wednesday. Great.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is coming from Dori Keston with Wells Fargo. Your line is live.

Thanks. Good morning. Based on what you're seeing marketed for sale today and then the shadow pipeline of deals you hear about, would you expect to be a net buyer next year?

Dory, I sure hope so. I really do. I mean, clearly our balance sheet is a differentiating factor for hosts. As we've said, we have the ability to allocate capital across many fronts, as you saw us do in the third quarter. And sitting here at 2.1 times leverage and the ability to do deals all cash and get them done quickly is something that I don't think there's anyone else in this market can do today. What we're seeing today, though, is still a fairly significant bid-ask spread in the marketplace. There just isn't a lot of quality product in the pipeline. We are talking to a lot of people, a lot of hotel owners, and we'll just have to wait and see how pricing trends as we get into 2024. But we clearly have the capability to not only continue to buyback stock, which we believe is very undervalued relative to our assets and the quality of our EBITDA, and invest in our assets and pay a sustainable dividend and also be acquisitive. So let's keep our fingers crossed that we have an opportunity next year to do that.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is coming from Meredith Jensen with HSBC. Your line is live.

Yes, thank you. I have two quick questions. First, looking at TREVPAR or comparable TREVPAR, if you could speak a little bit about what you're seeing on out-of-room spend and how we might think about that in the near and longer term. And then, secondly, I recall a couple months ago maybe at the analyst meeting, You spoke about some strategic moves you might make over time working with managers to identify some of the brand standards that might be modified as you, you know, sort of collect some sample sets to drill down on those. And given where cost pressures are, I was curious if there's anything meaningful there we could think about. Thanks very much.

Sure. On the food and beverage front, banquet and catering contribution, which is effectively banquet and catering and AV revenue on a per-room night basis, still remains pretty strong. I mean, last quarter, we just had a lot of pent-up group demand from groups that are canceled during COVID-19. So, it's very difficult to compare the Q3 results to Q3 results of this year when it comes to food and beverage, just because the excess amount of group that we had. So, even in our internal forecast, without the impact of Maui, we were actually expecting food and beverage revenues to be down. That said, that really has moderated in terms of food and beverage revenue. We are still getting meaningful amount of banquet and catering contribution and outlet revenues or the for occupied room. are significantly higher than they were back in 2019. The piece that is certainly going to moderate as we get into next year is attrition and cancellation revenue. Right? That has, you saw, had an impact in the third quarter with ANC revenue being down literally about half of what it was last year. So that, putting into perspective, in 2022, we received close to $100 million of attrition cancellation revenue. we think that's going to moderate somewhere on the 50 to 55 million range. That's just one thing to keep a lookout on. I'm sorry, Meredith, your second question was?

Just sort of, it was a sort of strategic question on working with managers on brand standards. Is there any modifications that could be made over time, you know, looking post-COVID?

We are constantly working with our managers to evaluate brand standards that are relevant. And, frankly, I would say Marriott and Hyatt both made meaningful changes for the brand standards post-pandemic, really figuring out which ones we should modify, which ones to eliminate, the ones which truly drive value to the guests. It's always a continuing conversation. And we believe as technologies evolve and we can leverage technologies which not only help from a productivity standpoint but also enhance customer experience, we will keep on doing proof of concepts and piloting those technologies to drive incremental value to the bottom line.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Tyler Batori with Oppenheimer. Your line is live.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. A few questions on the leisure and the resort commentary. Are you seeing any divergence within your portfolio between some of the higher rated resort properties and those that are a little bit lower or at a different price point? And then when you look at the holidays, talk about your I know it's still a little early there, but curious kind of what you're seeing in terms of demand, Thanksgiving and Christmas. And then the third part of this question, you talked about transient resort rates still 56% above 2019. You know, what sort of guideposts or what sort of expectations do you have for those rates? you know, Q4 and kind of going forward. Certainly, commentary and the expectation is that that number should slow. But just trying to get a sense of, you know, best guess, perhaps, you know, how much or where growth could end up going in the next couple of quarters here.

Sure. Let me start with the last question that you asked with respect to leisure transient rates. We're very happy that in the third quarter, our leisure transient rates were 56% above where they were in the third quarter of 2019. For reference, that's not about five percentage points from where we were in the second quarter, we were second quarter, we were 61% ahead. And you know, the fact that that the 56% number takes into account the three comparable resorts on Maui to the negative. And it excludes our Ritz Carlton Naples and our High Regency Coconut Point does give us a substantial level of comfort that our properties are going to continue to be able to charge a rate that customers are willing to pay just given the nature of the assets that we own. So we're not really seeing a divergence across the 16 resorts we have. They're all very high-quality properties, and we're optimistic that as we get into the fourth quarter and as we get into next year, we'll continue to be able to drive strong performance at all these assets. I think the RIT staples, what we're seeing with respect to booking pace across every room category at that property is very, very impressive and we're very optimistic that we're going to be able to outperform our underwriting expectations on the expansion of the Vanderbilt Tower. I think we underwrote 12% cash on cash return on that investment and we're going to do much better going forward. We are not seeing any signs of weakness as we move into the holiday season. You know, I would just caveat that by saying, but for the unknown surrounding what's going to happen in Maui this year.

And on the question of holidays and how things are pacing, You have to keep in mind Q4 holidays somewhat present a tough comp to last year because last year was the first time the country was really open for broader travel during the holiday season. But that said, specifically for, like, Christmas time right now, and this is much more directional, what we have, revenue on the books left Maui is effectively flat, which we think is very encouraging. And for Thanksgiving, it's slightly different. Off, but you have to remember that timing was a tough timing when you compare it to last year. So we were off, let's have Maui down about 6%, 7% in pace. But Christmas is effectively flat right now, pacing flat in terms of revenue.

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Anthony Powell with Barclays. Your line is live.

Hi, good morning. A question on one of your newer markets, Austin, Texas. Rep part's been down in the past few quarters. Is that all technology business travel being down? And just more broadly, I mean, there's a convention center renovation there starting next year. Will that be disruptive? And how's your experience been in that market relative to kind of the more traditional coastal business urban markets?

Anthony, I think that, you know, Austin, we have two properties. In Austin, we have the Hotel Van Zandt and we have the Hyatt Regency. Austin, just to remind you, the Hyatt Regency was the first asset that we purchased during the pandemic. I think it was the first hotel deal that was done during the pandemic. And that asset is doing actually quite well. Van Zandt is... And it's doing quite well given the fact that we're able to take in-house group, given the meeting space platform there, as well as its location across the lake. Van Zandt is more of a leisure-driven property. And I don't know if you've been to Austin recently, but there is an incredible amount of construction around the Van Zandt and that particular sub-market, the Rainy Street District. And that has really impacted business at that property. So for the long term, I think it's going to be great going forward because it's a myriad of new development is occurring there, residential as well as office. But in the short term, it's going to be challenging until we get the cranes out of there and the streets open up to business again. And tech has had a bit of an impact as well in the near term on that asset. So you're absolutely right. With respect to, you know, plans for the Convention Center host, as well as other hotel owners who have a presence in Austin, have been meeting with the appropriate officials in Austin to talk about – whether or not they're going to go forward with a closure of the Convention Center or a staged renovation and expansion, and also talking about ways that we can mitigate any impact that actions taken with the Convention Center will have on business in the Austin market. So we're being proactive and doing everything that we can to to mitigate any potential issues surrounding the Convention Center going forward. Okay.

Thank you for that.

Thank you. Our final question today will be coming from Chris Boronka with Deutsche Bank. Your line is live.

Hey. Good morning, guys. Morning. Thanks for taking the question. Talking about acquisitions, Jim, you know, I know you mentioned that, you know, there's a big pipeline out there. You know, we think there's going to be stuff that might come available next year that's related to debt refinancing. As you guys look at the potential pipeline, a lot of the deals you've, a lot of the acquisitions you've done the last couple years have been one-off assets, bigger EBITDA assets. What's your willingness to do either, you know, a portfolio type of deal or, something where there's, you know, a lot of CapEx involved up front. Are you willing to do different kind of deals and kind of what you've done in the last few years?

You know, Chris, the short answer is it really is transaction dependent. And, you know, if we see a portfolio that we believe is, you know, accretive to shareholder value, you know, And, you know, if assets need to be repositioned and they, you know, they have CapEx needs and we can see our way clear to, you know, performance in the near term, we would do that. I mean, I think a great example of an asset that has performed extremely well for us that needed to be repositioned is the Phoenician. And we brought that asset in 2015 and completely reimagined the property and invested, I think, $120 million to reposition it, including, you know, new amenities, a new spa, a new fitness center, a new lobby bar, and complete renovation of all the guest rooms. And the asset is doing exceptionally well. So if I could find another Phoenician, that is something that we would – certainly be interested and excited about doing. With respect to, you know, portfolio deals, we will look at, we look at everything that's out there and we look at it with an open mind. And if there is a transaction that we believe is accretive, we would certainly take it down. Okay.

Thanks, Jim.

Thank you. We have reached the end of our question and answer session, so I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Rizzolio for his closing remarks.

I'd like to thank everyone for joining us on our third quarter call today. We appreciate the opportunity, as always, to discuss our quarterly results with you, and we look forward to seeing many of you in person at NARIT and other conferences in the coming weeks. Have a great day. Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. And we thank you for your participation.